


Vertigo

by delabaissé (missyay)



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Multi, Roommates, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 20:59:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16542143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missyay/pseuds/delabaiss%C3%A9
Summary: “Buddy, I am so glad you brought your eviction notice. You are going to love my friends, I promise. You are going to find a new flat – check this out, I set up an LGBT roommate finder, Musichetta and Joly are looking for a roommate, you’re going to love them to pieces -” Courfeyrac scribbled a URL on the backside of the eviction notice and handed it back to Bossuet. “- and you are going to finally make it to a meeting, because now I know about your bad luck and we can trick it. I can’t wait for you to meet them! I keep telling them about the funny dude from Dom Rel, you already have, like, instant friends. Just pour some real life interaction on top. Second hand friends. They’ll love you.”





	Vertigo

**Author's Note:**

> This has been a project FOREVER, and honestly, I have given it up a number of times, but I’ve always come back to it because it’s also exactly what I need in a story I’m writing: an additional challenge to keep my perfectionism in check. I hope you like it!

 

Bossuet didn’t know much about Courfeyrac, except that he was ridiculously funny and insanely easy to talk to, and that he sat next to Bossuet in the second to last row in Domestic Relations, managing to turn every single one of the dry lessons into a firework of whispered puns and innuendo.

Courfeyrac had tried to invite Bossuet along to whatever he got up to on the weekend – Bossuet thought it had something to do with activism, though it might just be an endless stream of parties, you could never be sure with Courfeyrac – several times. Bossuet had to turn him down for increasingly unlikely sounding reasons, because that was how Bossuet’s life tended to work.

He’d stopped inviting Bossuet for a while, after that, but last week, he must have wanted to try one last time, and Bossuet had to turn him down because that had been the Day of the Eviction Notice. Courfeyrac had looked a little disbelieving and a little sad, but Bossuet refused to lose a potential friend to what a professor had once described as a Case of Bad Luck so Severe as to Appear Unbelievable, I’m Sorry Lèsgle But I Will Have to Give You that F.

That was why Bossuet brought the eviction notice to uni the next week and slid it over to Courfeyrac’s desk before he came in.

Courfeyrac, when he sat down, eyed the letter warily, but upon realising what it was, he cast a quick glance in Bossuet’s direction and picked it up to read.

“Shit,” he said emphatically, his eyes flitting over the text, “and here I thought you were turning me down for the fun of it. Truth be told, man, I thought maybe you were homophobic for a bit there.”

Bossuet almost fell out of the rickety chair. “No! No, good lord. That would be hypocritical of me. I am the opposite of homophobic. I am homophilic. Is that a word?”

“It is a word, but I am not sure if it is the one you meant to use”, Courfeyrac replied with half an indulging smile.

“I’m bi, is what I meant”, Bossuet clarified, and got treated to a front row view of a slow smile spreading on Courfeyrac’s face until he was grinning so broadly Bossuet almost assumed he was taking the piss. He clapped a hand on Bossuet’s shoulder and said,

“Buddy, I am so glad you brought your eviction notice. You are going to love my friends, I promise. You are going to find a new flat – check this out, I set up an LGBT roommate finder, Musichetta and Joly are looking for a roommate, you’re going to love them to pieces -” he scribbled a URL on the backside of the eviction notice and handed it back to Bossuet. “- and you are going to finally make it to a meeting, because now I know about your bad luck and we can trick it. I can’t wait for you to meet them! I keep telling them about the funny dude from Dom Rel, you already have, like, instant friends. Just pour some real life interaction on top. Second hand friends. They’ll love you.”

Bossuet was not so sure. Courfeyrac was a very loveable person, so surely he would have all kinds of friends, each with their own assets – but in Bossuet’s experience, the friends of people who were universally adored tended to not get along with each other too well.

Courfeyrac must have sensed some of those feelings, because he sobered slightly. “I mean, just come to a meeting first, then we’ll see what happens.”

“I will”, Bossuet promised, but of course, it did not work out that weekend.

The flatmatefinder, however, worked like a charm. Musichetta and Joly’s little blurb sounded endearing, and the flat was close enough to uni that Bossuet was slightly afraid of jinxing it.

Contrary to expectation, they replied immediately when Bossuet finally came around to sending a tentative message, and with such cheer that Bossuet wondered if they were some of those that Courfeyrac called “instant friends”, biased by the tales of That Funny Kid in Dom Rel.

Eh, whatever. If anyone could counteract Bossuet’s bad luck, it was Courfeyrac. Bossuet would take it, and gladly.

*

Bossuet was about to give the doorbell a second ring when the buzzer sounded. The heavy door opened, revealing a staircase just old enough to look antique rather than rundown. The stairs were wooden, rounded with wear at the edges, and they creaked when Bossuet set foot on them. After a long, winding journey all the way up to the fourth story, a young man with eyebrows so high on his forehead as to look permanently perplexed came into sight. He was leaning in the apartment doorway, somehow managing to make the pose look nervous.

“Bossuet, for the flat share, right?” he said, his fingers clenching and unclenching rapidly. “Hi, I’m Joly. Um, I’m very sorry, Musichetta isn’t home yet, but she’s going to be any minute -”

Bossuet stepped forward and held out a hand, mustering a hopefully calming smile. “Joly, it’s very nice to meet you in person.”

Joly considered this for a few seconds before taking Bossuet’s hand. His grip was firm, but his smile was not. “It’s nice to meet you, too”, he said, “I’m sorry, I should have led with that. Musichetta will be here soon, she’s better at this, I promise, she’ll show you around like a professional, she’s got this down to a t, she’s wonderful -” Bossuet took a careful step back to give the man some space, and Joly immediately seemed to deflate in what looked like an even mixture of relief and disappointment. “I jinxed it, didn’t I? I’m sorry.”

“Nothing has been jinxed”, Bossuet told him firmly. “What’s wrong, Joly? This is the third time you’ve apologised to me now, and I only just met you. Nothing has happened. Usually, I’m the one who meets new people by apologising a ridiculous number of times, but that’s because I got swept into a parking car by a squall or I entered the wrong house by accident and this nice couple thinks I’m a burglar and they’re standing there holding matching baseball bats, or-”

Joly laughed, in that split second, his face transformed entirely. His eyebrows, impossibly, rose even higher on his forehead. His eyelids crinkled. Bossuet would be willing to admit, to anyone who’d ask, that it was a little charming. “Thank you for that mental image, Bossuet”, Joly said, his fingers stilling briefly.

Bossuet nodded graciously. “You’re very welcome. I think there were little bats on them, too.”

Joly gasped. “A pun! I hope you congratulated them.”

„I tried“, said Bossuet, „I’m not sure if that was before or after they slammed the door in my face though, so I don’t know if they heard it. But people who appreciate great puns usually find a likeminded friend group once they’ve scared off everyone else – I would know – so I assumed they already knew the mastery of their pun.“

Joly stepped aside a little. “Would you like to come in?” he said. Then he eyed Bossuet as Bossuet stepped past him, and added slowly, “you don’t look like you’d be swept off by a squall.”

“I was on a bicycle at the time, and holding an umbrella”, Bossuet explained. “Bigger windage.”

The hallway was badly lit and cramped in a way that made Bossuet feel immediately at home. There was a shoerack by one wall, shoes dangling off both sides for lack of space. “Should I take off my shoes, too?” Bossuet asked, pointing to it, and Joly nodded. “Oh yes, please do. Musichetta is the one who buys all the shoes, but I’m the one who insists they have to come off in the hallway. We only bust half of all the gender norms. I’m a bit of a nag when it comes to cleanliness, I’m afraid.” Joly took a deep breath. His forehead creased sorrowfully. “We think it might be OCD. But I’m not sure, I just – with the jinxing and the cleaning and the making sure exactly 50% of all gender norms are busted and, doesn’t matter, the point is, I might freak out a little like I did just now, it happens, I think you should know if you moved in with us. Through here – this is the kitchen.”

The doorbell rang twice just as Joly sat them down at a very clean, though somewhat battered kitchen table. Joly released what sounded like a pent-up breath, but didn’t move to buzz the visitor in.

Bossuet turned towards the door with what must have been a very confused expression, because Joly laughed again and explained: “Oh, that was just Musichetta, she likes to announce herself. She’s got a key. You’ll love her, she’s wonderful.”

Bossuet wondered if the continuous declarations of love came from a place of worry or a place of genuine worship as the sound of very determined steps in what sounded like very high heels approached, then came to an abrupt halt and turned into slipper-padded shuffling in the hallway. Then Musichetta entered and solved the mystery once and for all.

She was petite and beautiful, with big brown eyes and a determined twist to the mouth as she stepped forward to shake hands with Bossuet. Her hands were tiny. So were her feet, Bossuet noticed, looking down as though blinded. “You must be Bossuet”, she said pleasantly. Her voice was a marvel, deep and smooth and round. Bossuet would kill for a voice like that. “It’s wonderful to meet you,” she said, and Bossuet replied, “likewise,” because more than one-word-answers would be ill-advised right now, probably, lest Bossuet blurted out something like  _I don’t know if I want to be you or date you_. “Joly has already shown you all the rooms?” She asked, making Joly look so worried again that Bossuet found some more words for his benefit immediately: “I’ve seen the hallway and the kitchen. Joly praised your tour-giving skills, so I assumed he was leaving the rest to you?”

Musichetta gave Joly a fond look, and Joly smiled widely in response. Snapping him out of his nervousness was about the easiest and most rewarding thing Bossuet had ever done.

Musichetta reached over to ruffle Joly’s hair, then made a beckoning gesture towards Bossuet, palm facing down. “Come with me then, young man, I’ll show you to your chambers”, she said, and Bossuet obediently got up out of the squeaky plastic chair to follow her past the shoerack with the multitude of tiny shoes again. The pair Musichetta must have just added was a glossy dark blue with heels that gave Bossuet vertigo just looking at them. Vertigo, or something else like amazement paired with a shaky twinge.

“Or, really, chamber”, Musichetta corrected herself, opening a door with a flourish. “Joly and I have gotten into the habit of calling it the Office, with a capital O, because it makes us sound more grown-up and less like we can’t be bothered to find ourselves a roommate. It might take a while to shake that habit. Anyway - it’s not a big room, but it’s got the best view. Plus, skylights are  _great_  for when it rains. A hassle to clean, but the sound and view totally make up for it.”

Bossuet regarded the ceiling’s slope towards the floor and thought, _I’m going to hit my head on this every day_. There was a fondness in the thought that Bossuet could not quite place. Something like the opposite of nostalgia: The certainty of having found a new place where memories would soon be made.

Musichetta eyed Bossuet quizzically for a second, then went on to talk about how parquet really had the best of all worlds, easy to clean, warm to the touch, and not sticky like linoleum. Bossuet spared the spotless if lightly scuffed floor hardly a glance before earnestly telling Musichetta, “I’m as in as I’m going to be.”

Musichetta visibly deflated. “We had a platter of cookies ready to woo you”, she said, managing to sound pleased and disappointed at the same time. “I had this whole speech about how our rooms were perfectly situated to ensure maximal school trip feeling while maintaining the most possible privacy. I was going to show you our room. I made decorations out of old books specifically for this occasion!”

“On second thought, I might have been wrong when I said I’m as in as I’m going to be”, Bossuet amended quickly, “Because I am in fact  _more_  in now. By all means, keep going!”

Musichetta squinted. “You know what?” she said after a while. “I like your way of thinking, Mister. Allow me to show you Joly’s and my room. It’s across the hall to ensure maximal school trip feeling while maintaining as much privacy as possible.”

Bossuet laughed and followed her out of the room again, across the hallway, where Joly was peeking out of the kitchen in what was already beginning to feel like a familiar way, and into the second room.

*

Moving house went about as well as Bossuet expected it to.

There were several Incidents, including a neighbour mistaking Bossuet for a robber and very nearly causing an ambulance-worthy scene, the cat from the lovely lady on the first floor running into Joly’s legs, causing him to save the cat and himself from bodily harm in a maneuver that unfortunately put all of his weight onto Bossuet’s Breakables Box (which Bossuet had refused to touch, hoping to bypass its very obvious fate) and several friends canceling at the last minute, leaving Bossuet with Joly and Musichetta to do all the actual moving.

What Bossuet hadn’t expected was for the mood to never drop. There was the occasional swear word, especially from Musichetta, especially while lugging Bossuet’s closet up into the fourth floor, but it always sounded like breathless laughter towards the end, and Bossuet caught several more glances of Joly’s life-changing smile from behind pieces of furniture or above boxes he was holding the opposite end of.

At eight in the evening, Musichetta sat down on a box, put her feet up on another, and refused to get up again until they ordered pizza.

“Do I tell her she’s sitting on my Breakables Box,” Bossuet whispered to Joly as they went to the kitchen to fetch the takeout flyers, and Joly burst out laughing.

“I mean, if we just order pizza, we solve the problem too”, he pointed out. “Plus, at this point… does it matter?”

“Probably not,” Bossuet agreed. “I might never look into it again, fearing that my sheer presence might cause more stuff to have broken in the first place. I might as well relabel it Schroedinger’s Breakables Box.”

Joly sobered. “Is it always like this, for you?” he asked. “Your life, I mean.”

“Always.” Bossuet shrugged a shoulder. “I get tired of it sometimes, but usually, it just gives me too many great stories to be seriously upset.”

“Are we talking about Bossuet’s freakishly bad luck?” Musichetta asked from where she’d made herself comfortable on the floor. “How’d that happen, anyway? Did you fall into a cauldron when you were a kid or something?”

“A witch cursed me,” Bossuet replied, one of the glib answers out of the Pile of Answers to Give When Someone Inquired after the Bad Luck, “It’s a whole tragic thing. Who’s for cheesy crust? I think we’ve earned ourselves some cheesy crust.”

They ended up sharing an extra large pizza with cheesy crust and extra cheese, and then Musichetta’s tiny feet ended up in Bossuet’s lap, “because you owe me a massage, for all the stairs I ascended today!” and Joly, impossibly, didn’t seem to mind. Bossuet threw him a wary look every now and then in between kneading Musichetta’s feet and trying not to admire them too openly, but all he did was point out that every stair Musichetta had ascended she had also descended, and hand Bossuet a bottle of disinfectant when Musichetta pulled back her feet with a contented sigh.

When they had both left Bossuet alone in the Office, it was long after midnight, the Breakables Box had been relabeled “Brokenables” by Musichetta in aggressively red sharpie, and the stars were shining through the headlights like they were trying to make a lasting impression. Like someone might in a job interview.

Bossuet lay down on the mattress, looked up into the night sky, and felt luckier than ever before.

“You’re hired”, Bossuet told the night sky.

*

Bossuet was incorporated into Joly and Musichetta’s household in a heartbeat, and after only a few days, they had already established routines that neither of them would miss for the world.

From there, it took only a couple of weeks for the place to feel, deeply and profoundly, like home.

Bossuet got used to new ambient noises like the staccato of a wooden spoon on the rim of a pot as Joly got rid of surplus sauce, or the shuffling of Musichetta’s slippers on the tiled hallway floor, or their unmistakeable shower duets (mostly disney, and mostly in tune, but there had been bits and pieces from musicals here and there, and sometimes a tune would hit Bossuet like a knife in the middle of a massage.) Bossuet loved every aspect of it.

A lot of the time, when Bossuet passed Musichetta and Joly’s bedroom, their door was half open, and about 80% of the time, when it was, they were up for a cuddle pile.

Bossuet usually snuck a glance inside to catch a glimpse of them cuddling or sprawled on the floor studying, or in the middle of an animated discussion. Seconds of borrowed intimacy. Sometimes, they would beckon Bossuet over to join them, and sometimes they didn’t.

Bossuet tried not to think too much about what it meant to develop a crush on both of your flatmates who were also dating each other.

*

It was still dark outside when Bossuet ventured into the hallway one especially cold December morning with the intention of filling a hot water bottle that would make the broken heating (which, suspiciously, only affected the Office) slightly more bearable.

Warm, dim light was seeping out from the half-open door to Musichetta and Joly’s room, and Bossuet glanced inside habitually. Joly seemed to have left for work already, and Musichetta was perched on her dresser, half-facing the mirror on the wall behind it. Only the light bulbs surrounding the mirror were burning, throwing Musichetta’s face into relief and casting long shadows across the rest of the room. Musichetta seemed momentarily absorbed in applying mascara, but made eye-contact with Bossuet through the mirror in a way that felt significant, so Bossuet stayed and watched for a moment, icy feet be damned.

When Musichetta was done with the mascara, she beckoned Bossuet over with a now-familiar gesture, her palm facing downwards, tiny fingers wiggling. Bossuet went without a second thought.

Musichetta pointed to the armchair, and Bossuet took a seat, receiving a satisfied nod from Musichetta in return.

The room was almost warm enough for Bossuet to fall asleep then and there, the atmosphere somewhere between eerie and sleepy in the way only early mornings before the first word of the day ever were. But something about the way Musichetta applied her make-up was capturing enough to keep Bossuet’s eyes from falling shut.

She was meticulous, but routinely so, and Bossuet watched in silence as Musichetta’s lovely face turned into something no less lovely, but sharper. Bossuet felt a stab of something, perhaps guilt at watching her so intently, perhaps envy at the steadiness of her fingers. It was too early to parse it beyond its heavy significance. Musichetta must have caught an edge of it on Bossuet’s face through the mirror, because she said, abruptly: “Want me to do you, too?”

There was a split second of Bossuet’s heart working double time, leaving no room to form words even if the only word that might have needed forming was yes. But then the moment was over, and Musichetta turned around to face Bossuet, frowned slightly to herself and said, “I’m not sure why I said that.”

 _Because you always know what to say,_ Bossuet didn’t reply _. Even if you don’t know what it means._

Bossuet didn’t know what it meant, either.

“Me neither”, Bossuet finally decided to say, lightly, “but I seem very suddenly and very badly to want you to do my make-up, so it must have worked.” Musichetta didn’t wait for Bossuet to confirm it a second time, just patted the free space opposite her on the dresser, and Bossuet went and sat down at her gesture again.

She picked up a pair of tweezers from one of the boxes strewn between them, and raised her eyebrows at Bossuet in silent question.

“I don’t think my workplace ever specified I needed manly unplucked eyebrows, so go to town”, Bossuet said, and to town Musichetta went.

It hurt worse than Bossuet had imagined, a kind of rapid twinge that Bossuet was unused to, and there were a couple of tears that Musichetta gracefully ignored.

“There you go”, She said kindly after a minute. Bossuet turned towards the mirror. Musichetta’s skill was undeniable: there was a certain sharpness to Bossuet’s features that hadn’t been there before, a cleanness that Bossuet appreciated, experimentally raising both eyebrows.

“I love it”, Bossuet said, with feeling.

“Want me to go on, do a full face?”

“Please do.”

This time, Bossuet’s eyes did fall shut as Musichetta’s fingers touched the skin of Bossuet’s face, gently but routinely.

*

Later that day, when Joly peered into the Office on his way to the kitchen, he stopped abruptly, retraced his last steps, and did a double take so obvious Bossuet had to assume it was for comic effect.

Bossuet, tired of the questions the day had already brought and never ceased to bring, only raised one skillfully plucked eyebrow in silence, daring him to say something.

Joly, instead of sputtering or fleeing, came closer and inspected Bossuet’s face with an intensity that left Bossuet almost dizzy with conflicting feelings. There was a tiny smile joining Joly’s wide-eyed look, Bossuet noticed and took care not to sigh in relief.

“That suits you really well,” Joly said finally. “Well done.”

“Thanks!” Musichetta yelled from where she was wreaking havoc in the kitchen, “I’ll take that credit!”

“Fair enough,” Bossuet agreed easily, glad that their streak of theoretically difficult conversations turning out to take only a minimum of maneuvering was left unbroken.

“So, Musichetta convinced you to let her try her make-up skills on you, huh?” Joly asked lightly.

Bossuet shrugged. “To be entirely honest, she didn’t have to do much convincing. I mean, look at her. Clearly she knows what she’s doing.”

“She really does,” Joly agreed wholeheartedly, worming his way into Bossuet’s lap for a welcome-home-hug that had already become commonplace between them.

And that was that.

*

It was well into their fifth month as flatmates and finally starting to get warmer again even in Bossuet’s room, when a light tap-tap-tap-tap-tap at the Office’s door announced Musichetta’s presence: she tended to knock much softer and faster than Joly.

“Come in, step into my office,” Bossuet called, as was custom by now.

Musichetta shuffled in, carrying a fluffy blanket and a laptop.

“I have been kicked out of our room for,” her fingers formed sarcastic quotation marks in the air, “‘shopping too loudly’, so I have come to search refuge-”

“Refuge granted,” Bossuet said, immediately getting up from the swivelly chair in front of the desk and instead sitting down on the tiny sofa, patting the space on the other end of it invitingly. “Shopping sounds exciting and Joly is a buffoon for not seeing this. Please tell me all about what you’re buying.”

Musichetta immediately dropped down on the sofa, bringing her feet up and resting her laptop on them, and if her knee came to rest on Bossuet’s thigh in the process, then neither of them felt the need to comment on it. She did give Bossuet a sidelong glance, though, and said, eyes narrowed suspiciously: “You’re procrastinating, aren’t you. I’m keeping you from your studies.”

“Yes, you are, and I could not be more grateful for it. It looks like I will be failing this term anyway for reasons I’m not sure even the secretary fully understands but has assured me cannot be rectified even though they are at the most forty percent my fault.”

Musichetta gave Bossuet a wide-eyed look, still not entirely accustomed to the infamous Bad Luck. “Oh, shit,” she said softly, squeezing Bossuet’s shoulder. “What the fuck happened? Do you want me to call them and tear them a new one? That sounds pretty major.”

Joly and she had been around for several cases of Bad Luck that were minor enough that Bossuet could turn them to laughter with no effort at all. It had been a while since something this major had gone to shit, and Bossuet was still struggling to make it sound funny.

“Apparently, the credit points for all of my exams were nullified because I let a fellow student use my account once to last-minute apply to a couple of courses because his own account kept throwing him out. All the professors assured him they knew it was him applying and taking the tests, but the system apparently did not. So now since I technically failed the courses he applied for - it’s a whole thing. But I would like it to be known that even if I was bested by the system, I did manage to save Marius Pontmercy from it, who is a fucking genius and couldn’t hurt a fly, so it’s worth  _something_.”

“Marius Pontmercy!” Musichetta exclaimed, and okay, this was not what Bossuet had thought she would take away from this, but alright - “He’s part of that group we’re trying to get you to join, Les Amis!”

Bossuet laughed. “See, I saved one of our own. I really fucking hated college anyway.”

Musichetta patted Bossuet’s shoulder again, sympathetic. “Still,” she said, with some weight, “it fucking sucks. I’m sorry it happened this way. My offer to call the secretary still stands, I do calls for Joly all the time.”

“I’ll figure out if I even really want to go to college first, because at the moment I’m tending towards no,” Bossuet said, “but I really appreciate the offer a lot anyway, so thank you. But let’s do some shopping first, why don’t we? What were you looking for?”

“Shoes!” Musichetta said, now leaning into Bossuet with most of her weight and tilting her laptop screen down slightly. “I have to order them from this special website that does unusual shoe sizes because my feet are that small. But they’re pretty good, and the shipping isn’t terribly expensive, so it’s okay.”

The screen showed a pair of burgundy boots with impressive heels, and when Musichetta clicked the drop-down menu to show her size (four, which was already enough to startle Bossuet into almost letting out a sound), it dropped down all the way to 16.

“Thirteen,” Bossuet said, softly, almost awed.

Musichetta, who had been hovering the cursor in the vicinity of the little blue 4, immediately moved it to the little number 13, clicked and held, highlighting it in blue.

“That your size?” she asked.

Bossuet nodded, holding a breath, without really knowing to what end.

“Do you want to buy a pair as well?” Musichetta asked, not unkindly, but not so kindly as to seem patronising. Bossuet nodded again, mutely.

“That’s great, we can split the shipping!” Musichetta released the click, and Bossuet the breath, as she added one pair in size 13, and one pair in size four to her virtual shopping basket. She clapped her hands cheerfully.

“This is great, I have never had a partner in unusual shoe sizes before,” she said, finishing up the order with a couple of quick clicks. Bossuet felt the sudden urge to hide behind her back and curl up like an armadillo, and did not try to withstand it.

Musichetta’s arm came around Bossuet’s shoulder immediately and she gave it a couple of absent pats. “Is this about ordering women’s shoes? Don’t worry about it, Bossuet, darling, nobody in this household will even bat an eyelash. Nobody at Les Amis would, either”, she added, with that wheedling tone she got whenever she talked about the group now. “Well, Marius might, but making Marius blush is half the fun of being there, so it doesn’t count.”

“I really do need to meet them all”, Bossuet said. “Do you think if I let the bad luck have my college career, it’ll let me go to a meeting?”

“Bargaining, I like it!”, Musichetta replied instantly, planting an excited kiss on Bossuet’s cheek. Bossuet froze for a second, causing Musichetta to squeeze the shoulder closest to her reassuringly.

“Joly doesn’t mind. I know you’ve been worried. We’re not that exclusive, and he’s not the jealous type, anyway.”

“Oh”, Bossuet said. A few seconds passed, enough for Bossuet to calm down and Musichetta to tilt her cheek in invitation. “In that case”, Bossuet finally said and leaned in to kiss her as well, a split second touch that traveled like lightning all the way to the fingertips, which kept tingling until well into the evening.

And if Joly gave Bossuet a particularly knowing and fond smile during dinner, in the middle of trying to come up with a way to trick the fates into allowing that first meeting with Les Amis that Bossuet had been anticipating for so long, now, then none of them mentioned it.

Well, Bossuet was tempted to, because  _Bossuet_  felt the way being struck by lightning a second time in the same day must feel.  _Not that exclusive,_  Bossuet thought. That might be one way to put it.

*

It took another two weeks for it to work out; two weeks, in which Bossuet gently failed out of College and not so gently fell in love with both roommates, who were also dating each other. Bossuet could not stress enough how bad of an idea it sounded like, but that did nothing to slow down the process.

The thing was, it felt like a good thing more often than it didn’t, and that was what alarmed Bossuet the most. Whenever a moment traversed friendly territory to emerge on the flirty side, Joly and Musichetta made sure to give Bossuet kind smiles and reassuring touches, as if they wanted to make sure that Bossuet did not freak out and run away. Which, most of the time, was a very real threat.

Bossuet, in turn, did not freak out and run away, and even smiled and touched them back some of the time.

Their shoes arrived in the second week. Just seeing the package sitting next to the shoerack was enough to make Bossuet’s heart race, and Musichetta’s excited shriek when she came home that day didn’t exactly help that condition.

She kicked off her shoes and ran for the kitchen, the gentle padded tap-tap-tap of her stockinged feet on the floor merging into a slide as she swang around a corner. Bossuet bent down to pick up her shoes and balance them on the top of the shoerack, precariously, and waited for her to return with a pair of scissors.

She did, after a few seconds, the scissors extended handle-first to Bossuet like a good kindergartner. Bossuet carefully took them from her. “Are you sure you want me to do this?”

“They’re your first high-heels! You gotta celebrate the process!”

Bossuet didn’t find anything to argue with that, instead gingerly setting to opening the package. The carton parted easily enough, revealing brown packaging paper and a glimmer of red. Musichetta gave a tiny, muted sound that made Bossuet pause and look up at the expression of joyful anticipation on her face. She reached out into the box impatiently to remove the paper, and then Bossuet stared down at their shoes: hers were small enough to fit inside the other pair, both of them beautifully made, dark velvet shimmering slightly in the low light of the hallway.

Bossuet was the one to take them out, holding out Musichetta’s shoes to her and setting the other pair down on the floor to step into.

“You put yours on first,” Musichetta commanded. “I’ll help you.”

And she did, zipping them up and fastening the little clasps on the sides just tight enough not to hurt after Bossuet stepped into them. Bossuet slowly got up from the floor, wobbling a little. There was that feeling again, from the first day Bossuet had seen their flat, and Musichetta’s shoes in particular. Bossuet had called it vertigo, then. Bossuet was willing to admit, by now, that it might be something else.

“Um. This might be a stupid question, but when I walk in these… do I set down the heel or the toes first?”

Musichetta frowned, then mimed walking in high heels for a second, the crease between her eyebrows deepening adorably. “I don’t actually. Hang on.” She put on her own pair while standing up like a professional, and took a couple of steps with a look of concentration on her face.

“No, I think you set down both pretty much at once,” she concluded.

Bossuet took an experimental step forward, careful to let the heel and the toes connect with the floor simultaneously. The audible clicking sound the heel made on the tiled floor was enough to make Bossuet’s heart skip, and then do a double-beat.

“This might not be good for my health, but it’s definitely good for my soul,” Bossuet stated, taking another step.

Joly chose that moment to peek out of his and Musichetta’s room. “What is bad for your health?” he asked, and then his eyes zeroed in on Bossuet’s feet, going round.

He swallowed audibly, not saying anything for a couple of seconds. It was almost enough to make Bossuet beat a hasty retreat to the Office, but then Joly cleared his throat and said, “I should tell you to always put your health first but these look amazing on you, so I will not do that and instead urge you to listen to your soul sometimes.”

Bossuet felt a blush coming up, and took a few more wobbly steps to hopefully distract from it. It seemed to work, with both Musichetta and Joly’s eyes glued to the size 13 burgundy high heels clicking against the floor in increasingly elegant steps. When Bossuet chanced a shoulder check, they were sharing what seemed to be a significant look, Musichetta’s face glowing, Joly slightly wild-eyed.

Again, it didn’t feel like a bad thing. For the first time, Bossuet allowed a thought that had been trying to worm its way to the forefront for a while:  _This might just work out._

Bossuet, still looking back, took another step, dangerously swayed to one side, and reached out to the wall to keep from falling.

“Wait, I’ll help you,” Musichetta called, rushing to Bossuet’s side, heels click-click-clicking. She offered her hand, and Bossuet only hesitated a split-second before taking it.

They walked up and down the hall hand-in-hand, Musichetta offering helpful tips from time to time. Joly looked on from the doorway the whole time, his wide-eyed look slowly giving way to one of fondness. “Do you want to wear them to the meeting on Friday?” he asked eventually.

Bossuet faltered and came to a halt. “Do… you think they’ll be okay with that?”

“Jehan wears high heels all the time, they won’t even look twice,” Musichetta said reassuringly.

“Well, they might look twice because these are some awesome shoes,” Joly amended, and Bossuet grinned.

“That they are. Sure, you know what? Why not. Let’s do that.”

Musichetta and Joly gave a cheer, ran to Bossuet’s sides, and both took a hand, as if on cue.

Bossuet took a breath, looked up as if to make sure this was actually all happening, and thought again: _this might just work out._

*

When they arrived at the Musain that Friday, they were way beyond fashionably late for reasons that included a strike, the Parisian public transport being what it was, and a stray kitten that insisted on being petted for at least twenty minutes before vanishing below a hedge.

The Musain was bustling with people, and for the first time that evening, Bossuet felt slightly weird wearing the red boots.

Then Musichetta, two steps ahead, turned around and winked, and Bossuet forgot about it entirely.

Courfeyrac was standing near the entrance and spotted them the second they entered, breaking into a full sprint and throwing himself into Bossuet’s arms. Bossuet stumbled back a few steps, but managed to keep both of them upright while returning the tight embrace, because you didn’t waste a Courfeyhug on something as simple as physical safety. The man was born to hug people.

Courfeyrac looked down as if to check for injuries, and then his eyes lingered on Bossuet’s shoes a second longer than necessary. Bossuet felt a hint of anxiety creep up, but Courfeyrac quenched it immediately by shouting, “Bossuet!! You came!! Enjolras! Combeferre! Come say hi to your new instant friend! Grantaire! Get over here, you will love each other! Wait a second, I’ll be right back.” And he left them standing there.

A good ten people started making their way over, and Bossuet would be worried if they didn’t all look so damn delighted.

One guy with a wild halo of dark curls in particular was grinning with way too much gusto for someone who was only just being introduced to someone. And indeed, when he came up to shake Bossuet’s hand, he said, “I’m Grantaire, hi, and I have to say, the story about the hedgehog, the bike, and the ambulance was the funniest I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing, and Joly promised it was  _even funnier_  when you told it, so I can’t wait to get wasted with you on a regular.”

Bossuet grinned back, instantly intrigued. “Oh boy, if you loved that story, you will not be disappointed. Things just sort of start happening when I’m around, it’s very entertaining for almost everyone involved. I can’t promise that that will always include you, though.”

“That’s okay,” Grantaire replied easily. “I can deal with failure, it’s my default state.”

“Don’t scare off our newest member before the meeting has even started, Grantaire,” said a tall, lanky black man with glasses mildly, and reached out to shake Bossuet’s hand next. “I’m Combeferre, Courfeyrac has told me so much about you already. I’m glad you could finally make it.”

“Oh, likewise,” Bossuet replied. “I am loving it so far, and as much bad luck as I have in everything else, I have never been wrong about my friends. And I can’t wait to be friends with all of you, you seem incredible.”

“Thank you,” said not Combeferre, but the blond man next to him, skipping the handshake and instead going for bisous immediately. “I’m Enjolras. It’s good to have you.”

There was a palpable honesty and a warmth behind the words that left no doubt as to who was the speaker of the group, and for a second, Bossuet felt almost bashful at the full force of it, heat high in the just-kissed cheeks.

Then, Courfeyrac returned, slinging a companionable arm around Bossuet’s shoulders, and everything went back to normal. Bossuet gave Enjolras an apologetic smile for turning away so soon after such a heartfelt welcome, and focused on Courfeyrac, who held up a small box.

“We’ve got pronoun tags for new people, so nobody needs to point theirs out awkwardly all the time. If none of these work for you, we can make a new one, I have a sharpie,” he said. He was already fumbling with a tag, trying to fasten it to his own shirt.

“Pronouns?” Bossuet replied.

Courfeyrac tilted the box so Bossuet could look inside, and there were name tags lying in it, except they didn’t have names on them, but instead all said,  _elle_ , or  _il_ , or  _ille_ , or  _iel_. He lifted his other hand to reveal a green tag that said,  _il_.

It wasn’t exactly the first time Bossuet had heard of people using different pronouns, but it was the first time anyone had waited for Bossuet to have a reaction to them, and now that the moment was there, Bossuet felt something so profound that it was hard to find a word for it.

Vertigo, Bossuet decided after a moment, sounded pretty accurate.

Like when you stood at the edge of a cliff not knowing if you’ll fly or fall.

“Elle,” Bossuet said, and felt her heart skip once, twice, and then dip into double speed, like a bird’s.  _Soaring_. Her fingers curled around the laminated edges of a bright red tag, and she looked up at her roommates ever-so-slowly.

“Oh fuck,” Joly said, at the same time as Musichetta said, “there it is.”

She smiled at Bossuet, and the pride in her expression eclipsed everything else for a couple of minutes.

Later, Bossuet would hardly remember anything of the meeting save for the faces: Joly’s apologetic one eventually melting into a soft fondness Bossuet had only ever seen angled towards Musichetta, Enjolras’s warm, welcoming smile, Courfeyrac’s exuberance, Grantaire’s unquestioning acceptance. Jehan’s tears of joy.

There were so many things going on in her life at once, with the move still feeling so fresh, the  _maybe something_  with her roommates, the college situation, and all the new people she had just met and continued to meet throughout the evening. It felt mad and unpredictable, but her life had always been that, and for the first time, it felt like it might be mad and unpredictable and new in a good way.

She sat back and enjoyed the evening and fastened the tag to her shirt, and let everything happen as it did, and for a third time in a short while, she thought:  _this might just work out._

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I would love some feedback on this, if you can spare a minute! :)
> 
> If I accidentally used any pronouns for Bossuet at all in the first part of the story, please let me know - I tried to get all of them, but especially when I got into a flow it was hard to keep track! I will do my best to erase them all as soon as I see them.


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